


The Suffering

by CrumblingAsh



Series: Terminal Show [4]
Category: Silent Hill (2006), The Avengers (2012)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Fusion, Alternate Universe - No Powers, BAMF Bruce, BAMF Tony, Bruce is Alessa's father, Dark, Gen, Horror, M/M, Protective Bruce
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-07-25
Updated: 2013-07-25
Packaged: 2017-12-21 07:20:51
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,499
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/897475
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/CrumblingAsh/pseuds/CrumblingAsh
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>An urgent call has Bruce Banner and Tony Stark racing down dark streets toward the hell they never wanted to return to.</p>
<p>Her name is Alessa.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Suffering

They speed through the streets as if invincibility cloaks them like armor, as if the hands of death don’t caress the roads or cradle the town they all lead to, like poisoned veins of a decaying victim, still alive enough to reach and die.

 

“Never thought I’d be coming back here,” Tony mutters as the tires hiss over the damp pavement, his hands gripping the steering wheel hard as he takes a sharp turn at a speed that should flip them.

 

It doesn’t.

 

“Let’s just get there,” Bruce responds hoarsely. Unlike Tony he has nothing to grip, his anxiety and fear burning under his skin, his fingers flexing and stretching and wanting to hurt something so very, very badly. His mind is screaming, a harsh, choked sound that repeats like a skipping record, scratched and caught by an unrelenting needle, and under it he can still hear the high-pitched shrieking ring of their phone. Her voice crackling against static over the line.

 

 

 

_He answers the phone without thinking. He’s become lax here, where the sun shines without the call to the goddess, paranoia nothing more than a curtain over the window at night. He feels a slightly sadistic thrill as the tosses his name joyously into the receiver, careless and fleeting. He can hear Tony chuckling from their kitchen – laughter that quickly turns into a round of muttered curses as the skillet spits back at him, dinner protesting being made – an answering smile on his face that drops when he hears her voice._

_“Bruce.” It’s all that’s said, but he knows instantly who she is; knows her by sound like he knows everyone else from that God-forsaken place. Sees her beautiful hazel eyes edged with taint like all of theirs were, the bright red curls and pale, flawless skin, and he chokes on the remembered taste._

_“Dahlia.” It comes out as a whisper, but the mutual silence of memories lasts only a second, and then she’s speaking again, fast and urgent and more than a little broken._

_“Bruce, I have to tell you something.”_

“At least nothing’s changed.” Tony’s trying to keep everything from shattering, from their bones to their minds, voice light as he takes another turn that throws them onto the main road with a raging squeal. Bruce’s head thumps the window in backlash, but the distraction of pain is not enough for him to miss the brightly lit sign on the cliff, shouting Welcome to Silent Hill like there is nothing but pride and welcome in the town. His body shivers and he sees Tony’s echoing flinch, but his heart is still racing, nails biting into his palms and

 

“Go faster,” he urges, ragged, and feels the borrowed truck jolt as it lunges forward with renewed vigor.

 

“…We’re gonna get there in time, Bruce,” Tony swears, voice low.

 

It’s a promise that paints like blood on brick walls.

 

 

 

_“Her name is Alessa.”_

_He’s too shocked to move, numbness coating his bones like oil as Dahlia’s words circle his brain like the tolling of a church bell. A daughter. A little girl, nine-years-old, with his blood in her veins and no image in her mind of what his face looks like. Vaguely he’s aware that his lover’s no longer in the kitchen’ can hear the faint puffs of his breath over the line from the phone in their bedroom, but after that his awareness is stunted. A daughter. He has a daughter._

_“…there’s been some trouble at her school,” Dahlia’s rambling cuts back in. He tries to refocus. “The other students, they don’t like her, call her … call her a witch, tell her she’s evil.” Tony’s sharp intake of breath whips over the line and into Bruce’s ear; Dahlia either doesn’t notice or doesn’t care. “Something happened today, and she ran from them, locked herself in one of the basement bathrooms.” There is a pause, small but loud. “… one of the janitors, a man, was inside cleaning, and…”_

**_No._ **

_His heart is made of lead._

_“I just … I needed someone to talk to, Bruce. I needed someone to hear. Christabella, the family – they don’t love Alessa, Bruce. She has_ no father _.”_

_“I’m coming.” He says the words before his mind can consider them, stretching the phone cord as far as it will go to reach for his jacket, his shoes. “I can be there in four hours, Dahlia. Don’t do anything, I’m coming-“_

_“ **No**.” Her voice is briefly shrill, picking up its edge of hysteria again, though it quickly fades as she laughs, small and distant. As if she’s decided something then and there. “No, Bruce. Don’t. Everything is fine. Christabella may have no love for Alessa, but she won’t allow any more shame for this family. Do not come back here, Bruce. Christabella is going to help her.”_

_“How?” He demands, freezing, waiting, his breathing and Tony’s in perfect, gut-wrenching synch._

_“They are going to perform a ritual,” Dahlia says firmly. She sounds like them, and Bruce feels an old fear that hasn’t held him for nine years seep into his bones like crawling, piercing hands. “They’re going to restore her innocence.”_

 

 

“The church or the hotel entrance, you think?” The streets of Silent Hill are crowded with the wealthy and the laughing, who shout curses and threats at them as they speed pass, but there is no sight of the large group dressed in black, serene smiles on their twisted faces, a innocent child in the middle of them.

 

“We’ll cross the hotel first.” Bruce’s hands clutch his knees, the blood from the nail-cuts on his hands smearing against the khaki material. “Look for their damn cars.” The closer they get, the harder it is to restrain himself, to hold his rage inside and not lash out _now_.

 

_‘You know what a ritual will mean! You know what they will do to her, Dahlia!’_

_‘It won’t be like that! They’re going to help her!’_

There are no such things as helpful rituals – the Brethren had always greeted every problem with a sharp hand and a heavy whip; recognized forgiveness only in blood dribbling forcefully to the floor from open wounds. They know no other solution to perceived evil than to rid themselves of it in a way that praised their goddess. They would have viewed the attack on his daughter, as a fatherless child, only as confirmation of their belief that she was sin incarnate.

 

His teeth gnash together. It isn’t her innocence they want to restore.

 

“Bruce.” Tony’s hand shoots over to clutch his elbow, foot slamming on the brakes, making the car behind them honk in protest as they jerk against their seatbelts. Bruce’s hands are already reaching for his buckle as he sees the line of fancy, flashy cars curled around the curb of the Grand Hotel, of a woman darting out of the entrance, red hair billowing behind her as she frantically gestures to passing crowds too concerned with themselves to notice. Tony’s already out, and he reaches Dahlia before Bruce, grabbing her shoulders and giving her a jarring shake.

 

“Where is she?” He’s yelling as Bruce reaches them. Dahlia’s dressed in proper Brethren attire, flaming hair stick out against her black dress, held down the black prayer veil she’s tossed behind her head. There are tears streaming down her face, lips trembling, continuous mutters of “what have I done? What have I done?” streaming from her mouth. But instead pitying her, it only enrages Bruce more. He pulls the woman from Tony’s hold only to push her back against the brick of the building with enough force to stun them both.

 

Yet it doesn’t phase her, her beautiful eyes like ripped-up carcass.

 

“Dahlia, _please_ ,” he begs, and it wrenches in his gut like a corkscrew, yet she doesn’t seem to hear him.

 

“Punish the sin,” she whispers instead, staring at nothing, seeing something. “Not the sinner. We punish the sin, not the sinner. The sin. She is the sin. What have I done?”

 

“Bruce.” Tony grabs his shoulder, pulls him away from Dahlia who sinks to the ground, arms wrapped around herself like a cocoon she won’t even try to escape. “We’ll take the passageway,” he urges. “ _Come on_.”

 

The air that rushes over them when they push frantically through the Grand Hotel doors is chilling and familiar, curling over them like the rushes of frozen downpour – the tender caress of a violent lover. Past a moving flinch they ignore it – they both know this place, empty and discreet and right in all the wrong ways; nights like these. Up the stairs, left at the top; burning lungs and shaking bones and they’ve left the painting covering the secretive room 111 cracked open, self-assured.

 

There’s a low murmur of _something_ echoing up from the room, like the whispered prayers of an army off to conquer and ravage. It’s Tony who opens the door, his own fists clenched in mimic of the move Bruce has already been doing, trying so, so hard-

 

Muffled, they hear it, high and terrified and cracking.  
  
 _”Mommy!”_

“Bruce!”

 

  
  
  
_”You’re a monster.”_

_“The rage that grows inside of you is the demon at work, child.”_

_“You’re a demon, Banner.”_

_“A mistake.”_

_Bruce Banner wears his titles like a cloak wrapped around him, thick enough in hate and scorn to block out the pain of being outcast by the town. He’s thirteen, alone, and angry – he bears the scars of his father’s disappointment and the Brethren’s discipline._

_“You’re an abomination we suffer for our sins.”_

 

 

Tony’s calling after him, low urgent whispers of his name as they run jagged steps, mixed with a fear Bruce’s fury doesn’t recognize as he races over board and steel in this secret place. The fire in his veins has lit like a match to arsenic.

 

Her screams are louder, _his daughter’s_ , reverberations of a violin’s strings under a bow on the wrong notes. They’re tearful, choked, and as he crosses the last plank towards the only door they have shut, he can smell the smoke.

 

It breaks so easily under him.  
  
His mind turns to static at the sight of the little girl, long black hair and so very, very small, locked down in shackles to a metal grate that simmers over a vast pit of fire, beautiful pale skin blistering and burning as she writhes and cries out for them to _please! please stop!_

A chain inside of him breaks.

 

The chanting has stopped. Eyes have moved from his tortured child to them, and over the sounds of her screams he can hear someone whisper “demon”. His mind rages to kill, to slaughter, to rip them to shreds and bathe in the blood of their torn, useless skin. But Tony’s hand is on his back, pushing him, and he moves for him as he always has.

 

“Get her!”

 

The room erupts in a flurry of motion as the Brethren members react, some rushing forward, others attempting to form a barrier between them and their sacrifice; his mind laughs loud and hard as they fall as easily to him as the door they had tried to hide behind. Their heads mash so easily against the wooden pillars, painting red on dusty brown. Their stunned bodies twitch in his wake; something inside wants to watch.

 

“ _Please!_ ”

 

The static of his mind drops, a breath, and his feet kick and trip over his victims carelessly as he stumbles towards the pit.

 

“Alessa.”

 

Her small wrists and ankles are held down by welded iron; she arches away from the heat as much as she is able and screams out the pain it causes. He doesn’t think – kicks at the pit so violently it slides out from beneath her with sharp protest and tips over, hot coals and fire spilling onto the wooden floor. Alessa is still writhing, the heat from the metal cradling her body burning, sharp noises from her throat like shards of glass raining from the sky, piercing his heart. He grabs at her shackles, ignoring the searing pain in his palms as he snaps them away, their metal brittle from the intense heat. One, two, three, four-

 

She falls against him, shaking – he can feel the boiling wetness of burns on her back, sticky and soggy under hands he’s quick to move as she trembles in his arms, whimpering and gasping and gagging as her fingers dig in.  
  
”It’s okay, baby,” he murmurs against her hair, rocking her slightly. “It’s alright now. I’m here. Shhh.” There is nowhere he can touch to sooth her that won’t cause more pain; she doesn’t seem to mind as she tightens her hold, still crying. “Shhh. No one is ever going to hurt you again, Alessa. I swear, baby. Shhhh, God I swear, _shhhh_.”

 

“Bruce.”

 

It’s Tony’s voice, low and empty like it hasn’t been in a long, long time. He looks up, noting for the first time the fire that rages around them, dancing across the wood with wicked flame licks as it tried to dance upon his child’s skin. He can vaguely hear the panicked screams of the Brethren as the race this way and that, tripping over fallen, twisted bodies, disappearing into thick clouds of smoke.

 

“Some of them are getting away,” Tony continues in the same voice. “Including _her_.” Bruce turns his eyes to him, then; his body splattered in blood that isn’t his, hands soaked in it. His gaze is hard, reflecting the tendrils of fire, though it softens when it lands on Alessa’s shaking form. Bruce doesn’t flinch as one of Tony’s hands gently cards through his hair, leaving wetness in its path that calms what is left of his rage. “We should leave. She needs a hospital. And we need out.”

 

He just nods, Tony’s hand sliding under his elbow to help him stand, balancing the little girl’s weight. Alessa gasps as the new movement, her burned skin against his fabric a new wave of pain. Rattling breaths puff against his neck as they move towards the back, away from the fire, away from her demons, and he looks down at her as Tony steers them towards a corridor he had never had to know.

 

Eyes that are _just like his_ stare back at him, squinted in pain, sparking with old knowledge and wary childlike hope.

 

“…Daddy?” She rasps, soft and light.

 

He just smiles.

 

-0-0-0-0-0-0-0-0-0-

 

Dahlia stands across the way from the Grand Hotel, watching as firefighters race towards the inferno that has engulfed it, armed with their weapons and desperate. She can see the shadows escaping from this side and that; frantic dark bodies darting into fancy cars, fleeing nightmares – Christbella’s car takes off with a squeal. She laughs a little, a high-pitched, breaking thing, as she sees two tall figures moving calmly but quickly toward an abandoned truck too rundown to belong, something cradled between them.

 

“She’s mine,” she whispers, shaking her head, fiery hair flying about. Smiles. “She’s mine. My sin. She will be cleansed.”


End file.
